


Running the Scam

by Anarchyinplasma



Series: Life and Times of a Risen [11]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gambit Match, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26405257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarchyinplasma/pseuds/Anarchyinplasma
Summary: Gathering intel for the Vanguard, Arcturus is conscripted to run in Drifter's latest "Gambit Prime" scam.
Series: Life and Times of a Risen [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/643955





	Running the Scam

**Author's Note:**

> Was fun to write, hope someone likes it, comments and criticism as always welcome.

“You want me to do what?” Arcturus deadpanned, Ikora looked around slightly guilty.  
“We want you to play the Drifter’s game.”  
“And dare I ask why?”  
“We think you’ll be good at it. And we want to know what’s going on with this ‘Gambit Prime’ scam.”

That had been a week ago.

Arcturus spins on his heel, drops into a crouch, and pulls his battered Dark Age rifle up. The Titan charging after him barely has time to try to dodge before he pulls the trigger and sends an armour piercing round smashing through his helmet, shattering his faceplate and turning his brain to ribbons. Drifter’s voice sounds in his earbud.  
“Invader down, good job brother, you’re a hell of a sentry.” Arcturus doesn’t reply, he hasn’t spoken a word to Drifter except through voice modulator the entire time he’s been running in Gambit Prime, so far everyone seems to have taken him for the strong silent type.

He loads another magazine, chambers the round, stows the rifle. The new gloves still feel strange on his hands. Drifter’s been unusually generous with the gear, Arcturus’ cobbled together dark age disguise has been replaced with custom tailored stuff. And he’s gained a reputation as a ‘Sentry’, whatever that means. Callahan has a working theory that Drifter is segregating his Gambit regulars into whatever groups he might need to call on in a firefight, but Ikora doesn’t agree, so they’re still at it.

He pulls his still unfamiliar cannon out and dispatches a nearby Vex, single shot, straight to the box, bright white liquid sluicing out in waves. He moves to another, then another, cannon barking as Vex drop and motes are swiped by a team-mate.

He starts running to the next high value location when Callahan’s voice sounds inside his head.  
“You have a call from Tallulah incoming.”  
“Put her through.” Arcturus pants, sprinting full pelt through a hail of energy fire and shoving his back to a pillar as a cyclops shot lands a few metres away and his joints shake in their sockets.

“Hey Arcturus.” His second oldest friend’s voice sounds from the ghost-mic implanted behind his ear in his mastoid bone, reserved for trusted conversations only. “Heard you were pulled for secret ops, even my old clearance wouldn’t convince Rey, what’s up?”  
“They have me running in Drifter’s-” Arcturus breaks off with a grunt of pain and effort and pulls a knife from his belt, gutting a Goblin as it lurches around his cover; not quite fast enough to save himself from taking a slap rifle shot to the gut. He can hear Tallulah waiting patiently until he finishes, even at the mention of her least favourite still living person. “They have me running in Drifter’s latest scam for intel. I don’t like it either.”

Tallulah makes a disgusted sound in the back of her throat.  
“How long are you on that one?”  
“Until I get something solid, it’s deep cover.” Arcturus replies, throwing a grenade around the corner and counting his heartbeats until he hears it detonate and a wash of rippling Void fire melts the cyclops’ hull. “Can I call you back Tallu? Things are about to get really noisy here.”  
“Sure.” Tallulah says, and the tingling in Arcturus’ ear canal goes dead as the connection cuts.

A team-mate in armour trimmed with a glittering white hydra sprints past his cover, through the melted mess of vex metal and motes, slamming a bulging compressed bundle into the bank. The swirling tube of energy reacts by shuddering violently and retracting into the ground. Arcturus’ nose starts to fill with the scent of stale ozone before his rebreather clicks over to a filter automatically, then the sky overhead rips open and a sixteen foot tall Taken Baroness steps onto the battlefield. Some loose hand signals from the Guardians around him coordinate a synchronised rotation to the Taken Wizards floating across the arena. The Titan that reaches them first pulls a sword from thin air and brings it down on the first Wizard’s head; the creature screeches in pain as the blade bites and sheer force shatters it’s skull into fragments before it dissolves into nothingness and the group turns to the other Wizard.

A blast of fire scatters them, Arcturus jumps to the side, feeling the Void wrap his form in darkness as light bends around him and he becomes invisible to the creature. He pulls his rifle over his shoulder and lines up a shot, waiting until the Warlock with an SMG has torn away the gossamer weave of sapphire that denotes an Arc shield before he exhales and pulls the trigger. The gun slams into his shoulder and the round slams into the Wizard’s bony nose, turning its head to mist as it’s limp form is dragged back into the space between realities.

A third Taken coated in energy claws its way into the battlefield through a sudden rift and Arcturus switches back to his unfamiliar cannon. Fire exits the barrel as he pulls the trigger in three short, sharp taps; the solar energy cloaking the Taken evaporates with force, leaving the creature dazed; right up until the Titan puts his fist through its chest cavity and proceeds to bodily rip the creature into two halves.

Where before the Taken were merely pulled back into the space surrounding reality, this one drops a tumor on reality, a bubble of Taken-looking miasma that claws its way onto the boots of Arcturus’ team-mates and makes them glow with power. Arcturus moves away, patting the other Hunter on the back as he passes to communicate his intention. He breaks into a run towards the portal, his only contribution to killing the Primeval throwing a grenade at its feet before he jumps into the glittering black energy filling the metal frame of the portal without hesitation and emerges a second later on an identical battlefield filled with enemy Guardians.

Drifter has dropped him on high ground, and Arcturus takes advantage of that to snap off a quick shot with his rifle. A warlock falls, shards of his faceplate falling to the ground as Arcturus pulls on his light and borrows a trick from his sister’s playbook. In keeping with his disguise he can’t use his bow, his style is distinctive, and Drifter will know him on sight. So he needs a different tactic.

The Void fills his veins with ice and curls around his form, wrapping him in a cloak better than any that technology can provide. Spectral blades flow into his hands and fill out into clean, thin knives, and then he’s moving fast and lethal.

There’s a Titan running at him brandishing a shotgun. Arcturus’ heightened senses detect the lick of electricity to his form and he pushes off from the ground, somersaulting over his opponent’s lightning-wreathed punch and reaching downwards with his leading blade. The impossibly sharp spectral dagger cuts into the Titan like his armour isn’t even there, entering at the collarbone and reaching through his heart in one strike. Arcturus is back on his feet and moving as the corpse melts into a puddle from exposure to the raw Void. Puffs of dirt and chunks of rock line the ground at his feet as a Warlock struggles to bring his rifle to bear and Arcturus picks up speed, moving erratically as he closes the gap.

He remembers Raven’s teaching from centuries ago and leans into the feeling the Void kindles in him, a feral grin covers his face as he lets the natural bloodthirst of his light have a little bit more free will over his thought process. A bullet clips his leg but he ignores it, dropping into a slide as a high calibre round sails over his head and the deep clatter of a heavy machine gun reaches his ears. Then he lunges out of the slide, covering the remaining five or so metres to the Warlock instantly and sticking both blades through his sternum. The Void drinks in another kill, and Arcturus feels a new push of energy. The heavy machine gun is still chattering away behind him, broken chunks of masonry fly everywhere as bullet holes stitch the stone wall and Arcturus falls off his kill, the enemy Primeval gives a roar and stomps it’s monstrous foot, the shockwave thrusting the Titan firing at him through the air with apparent ease. Arcturus seizes the opportunity and surges forward to meet him, sliding under his sailing form as stray bullets scatter and mar the landscape with more damage. Then Arcturus lunges up and carves his opponent in two, inserting both blades into his gut, finding his spine with the tips, and yanking crossways.

“Three dead! Damn brother, you got moves, very few can handle a blade like you can.” Drifter’s voice enters his earbud as Arcturus searches for a final kill, but no such luck, he barely spots the gleam of the Hunter’s scope between two rocks before a round sails towards him and crashes through his chest. Arcturus feels it atomise a rib and break two more, tearing chunks of his lung and muscle out of his back through the exit wound as he falls in a spiral, coating himself in the last remnant of his light to avoid detection as he dives behind cover and waits for Callahan’s rush of healing light to fill him with pain relief.

The muscles start to knit and the bone regenerates as the timer on his HUD approaches zero seconds, the last remnant of his Void flushes out of his system. Blades dissipating as Drifter’s transmat yanks him back through space to his own side of the battle.

He’s barely on his feet and back to full function before a klaxon goes off and Drifter’s smug tone enters his ear again.  
“Guess they’re returnin’ the favour brother, do or die time.” As if to illustrate this point, Arcturus’ fellow Hunter falls near instantly, a well placed sniper shot turning his jaw to dust as their newly damaged Primeval glows an ugly green and regenerates some of it’s ragged and damaged physical form. Exactly the way the other one had when Arcturus had gone on his killing spree.

The old Hunter’s instincts kick in, his eyes follow the whisper of displaced air that ultra-high -powered rifles always produce, alighting on a Hunter glowing red on his HUD, the bright glimmer of a scope pointing right in his direction. Arcturus drops, rifle held steady as his Dark Age distance dueling instincts serve him well. He exhales and pulls the trigger, a cough of cordite giving way to the sharp crack of his own rifle as he sends a bullet sailing serenely towards their invader.

“Knew there was a reason I gave you all that fancy gear brother!” Drifter’s voice enters his ear again as the enemy Hunter falls, rifle scope a mess of powdered glass and shredded metal with a hole through his helmet and a gaping ragged exit wound in the back of his skull. Nearby Arcturus’s team kill another Taken wizard and unload enough ordinance to level a small mountain at the already weak Primeval, which is sucked burned, blistered, and mangled back into the ether.  
“You’re a damn good gun. Come see me.” Drifter tells him. Arcturus feels the transmat pull him away and into the Derelict as Drifter walks up to him with a sly grin.

“Don’t say nothin’ brother, I know you ain’t a big talker, take my feed though, I’ll be needin’ a hired gun real soon I think. You been payin’ me real good brother, there’s some extra scratch for ya in return.” Arcturus catches the rifle that’s tossed to him and inspects it, bolt action, high calibre, a nice piece. He stows it and nods to Drifter, turning on his heel and starting to make his way back to his own ship before a comment from the other Risen stops him.  
“I’d swear I know you from somewhere not my Gambit brother, used to know a guy handled his rifle damn sight better n’ lots in the Dark Age, you remind me of him.” Arcturus shrugs, trying to play it off. Drifter’s grin turns a bit more predatory. “I ran with ‘em once, screwed ‘em out of a great find out in London…” His eyes narrow at Arcturus, who wills himself to not react, merely cocking his head in curiosity. Drifter’s grin relaxes slightly. “Kinda regret that one, wonder if I can call on them if I need a good crew. Ah I’m getting sentimental, good shootin’ brother, see ya ‘round.” He walks off and Arcturus walks back to his own ship, jetting off to the tower for a meeting with Ikora.

He calls Tallulah back on his flight, dialing her frequency as the ship’s autopilot guides it through translight space.  
“Hey Tallu, just finished, what’s up?”  
“Hey Arcturus,” she sounds relieved, “how did it go?”

He starts regaling her with his match, telling her everything he can about his experience with Gambit so far, the former Vanguard listening intently.  
“I’ll speak to Rey.” She says when he’s finished, all business. “Maybe Rae or I should go with you, double intel; and someone to watch your back when things get increasingly lethal.”  
“I’m on my way to meet her now.” Arcturus replies as his ship drops out of a translight space with a shudder. “See you there.”


End file.
